Romeo & Harriet
by Bassoonfreak
Summary: Draco and Harry Slash told through the dialogue (well, slightly changed and edited to my needs dialogue) of Romeo and Juliet! R and R!
1. Act 1 Scene 1

*growls unhappily* I rather loath what ff.net does to my stories, and it's all because of this damned Mac. Oh well, life goes on . . . and then ends rather nastily if a radioactive giant radish squashes you. Anyway, sorry about the first chapter. I forgot to do all this weird stuff I have to do to make something readable. It rather sucks. Here's the edited version of the prologue all set up so that you, my beloved readers, can actually read it. I don't own the characters in this story, or the plot it's self, but the idea is mostly mine. I'm sure people have done this in the past, but I haven't read many fanfics yet so I wouldn't know who has and who has not. I do not wish to be sued, I have no money and no personal belongings. All I have is some beer and half a cigar. I also run around naked and lick porcupines - but that's besides the point. ON TO THE STORY!  
  
Two houses, both alike in dignity,  
  
In fair old Hogwarts, where we lay our scene,  
  
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny  
  
Where wizard blood makes wizard hands unclean.  
  
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes  
  
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;  
  
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows  
  
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.  
  
The fearful passage of their death-marked love,  
  
And the continuance of their parents' rage,  
  
Which, but their children's end, naught could remove,  
  
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;  
  
The which if you with patient ears attend,  
  
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.  
  
Fred and George walk through the halls of school on a fine October morning.  
  
"Brother George, on my word, we shall not carry coals," Fred announces.  
  
George laughs, "No, for then we shall be colliers!"  
  
"I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw!" Fred grins and draws his wand, waving it before him madly.  
  
"Ay, while you live, draw your neck out of collar!" George smiles and gives his brother a playful punch on the shoulder.  
  
Fred jumps forward, wand held out as if it were a sword and pretends to fence as he says, "I strike quickly, being moved."  
  
"But thou are not quickly moved to strike," George says wisely.  
  
"A snake of the house of Slytherin moves me!" Fred bellows at the top of his lungs for the whole hall to hear.  
  
George quiets his brother down and says more words of wisdom. "To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand. Therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away."  
  
"A snake of that house shall move me to stand," Fred retorts, "I will take the wall of any man or maid of Slytherin's."  
  
" That shows thee a weak man; for the weakest goes to the wall," George chides Fred.  
  
Fred shrugs, "'Tis true; and therefore witches, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall. Therefore I will push Slytherin's men from the wall and thrust its maids to the wall."  
  
"The quarrel is between our houses," George sighs, "and us their men."  
  
"'Tis all one. I will show myself a tyrant," Fred grins as he goes back to pretending to be a swordsman, "When I have fought with the men, I will be cruel with the maids - I will cut off their heads."  
  
"The heads of the maids?" George asks and raises an eyebrow.  
  
"Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads. Take it in what sense thou wilt." Fred, sticks his wand back in his pocket.  
  
"They must take it in sense that feel it," George agrees.  
  
"Me they shall feel while I am able to stand; and 'tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh," Fred smirks proudly, rubbing his body in a playfully suggestive fashion. He dances around singing, "A pretty piece of flesh I am!" at the tops of his lungs.  
  
Once again George has to quiet his brother, but this time while he too is laughing, "'Tis true thou are not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst been poor- John," he sees Crabbe and Goyle walking towards them in the hall, "Draw thy wand! Here comes two of the house of Slytherin."  
  
"My naked weapon is out. Quarrel! I will back thee," Fred squeaks, jumping behind his brother.  
  
George sighs, also taking out his weapon, and says to Fred angrily, "How? Turn thy back and run?"  
  
"Fear me not," Fred tries to assure George.  
  
"No, marry. I fear the," George answers.  
  
"Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin," Fred tells George.  
  
George nods in agreement and whispers back, "I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list."  
  
"Nay," Fred shakes his head, "as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them, which is a disgrace to them if they bear it." He bites his thumb at Crabbe and Goyle and makes a face.  
  
Goyle spots this and asks gruffly, "Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?"  
  
"I do bite my thumb, Sir," Fred replies.  
  
"Do you bite your thumb at us, Sir?' Goyle asks again, this time more demanding.  
  
Fred turns to George and asks under his breath, "Is the law of our side if I say ay?"  
  
"No," George says.  
  
"No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir," Fred stands at attention and speaks to Goyle as if he were answering a drill Sargent in an obvious attempt to anger Goyle.  
  
"Do you quarrel, sir?" George asks.  
  
Goyle looks quizzically at George, "Quarrel, sir? No, sir."  
  
"But if you do, sir, I am for you," Fred makes a bow. "I serve as good a house as you."  
  
"No better," Goyle asks.  
  
"Say 'better.' Here comes one of my master's kinsmen," George whispers to Fred.  
  
Fred smirks and says, "Yes, better, sir."  
  
"You lie," Goyle growls.  
  
"Draw, if you be men," Fred challenges them as he takes his wand out of his pocket, "Brother George remember thy swashing blow."  
  
They start dueling with each other and curses, hexes, and spell fly every which way some of which hit innocent students as they pass by. Blaise Zambini sees this as he's walking to the library and runs over to try to separate the fight. "Part, fools! Put up your wands. You know not what you do!"  
  
Ron is also on his way to the library and sees Blaise trying to break up the fray. "What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?" Ron calls to Blaise, "Turn the, young good sir Blaise! Look upon thy death."  
  
Blaise crawls out of the fight and replies with, "I do but keep the peace. Put up thy wand, or manage it to part these men with me."  
  
"What," Ron snorts, "drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word as I hate hell, all Slytherins, and thee."  
  
McGonagal hears of the fight occurring in the school and goes to investigate. She finds everything in a mess and shouts for the other teachers, "Clubs, bills, and partisans! Strike! Beat them down!"  
  
"Down with the Gryffindoors!" the students from other houses yell, "Down with the Slytherins!"  
  
Arthur and Molly Weasley, who have been staying at Hogwarts to help the teachers with the latest problems between the Gryffindoor house and the Slytherin house, run in just after hearing about the recently occurring fight.  
  
"What noise is this?" Arthur asks, "give me my long wand, ho!"  
  
"A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a wand?" Molly asks.  
  
Arthur frowns and yells, "My wand, I say! Lucius Malfoy is come and flourishes his wand in spite of me.  
  
Although the Weasleys and the Malfoys were called in to help with the problem, they have instead been adding to it. The only thing keeping them there is that the areas where their houses reside are under attack and this is the safest place for their family and them.  
  
Lucius spots Arthur and bellows, "Thou vile villain Arthur!" Narcissia, seeing the oncoming fight, grabs the sleeve of Lucius's robes. "Hold me not, let me go," Lucius demands, pulling away from his wife.  
  
"Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe," she says firmly as she grabs him by the sleeve a second time.  
  
Dumbledoor walks forward. As he does this, his presence alone breaks up the brawl. "Rebellious students, enemies to peace," he sighs angrily, "profaners of this neighbor-stainéd steel - Will they not hear? What, ho! You men, you beasts, that quench the fire of your pernicious rage with purple fountains issuing from your veins! On pain of torture, from those bloody hands throw your mistemperéd weapons to the ground and hear the sentence of your professor. Three wizard brawls, bred of an airy word by thee, Arthur Weasley, and Lord Malfoy, have thrice disturbed the quiet of our halls and mad Old Hogwarts' ancient citizens cast by their grave beseeming ornaments to wield old partisans, in hands as old, cank'red with peace, to part your cank'red hate. If ever you disturb our halls again, your stay shall pay the forfeit of the peace. For this time all the rest depart away. You Lord Weasley, shall go along with me; and Lord Malfoy, come you this afternoon to know our farther pleasure in this case, to old Freetown, our common judgment place. Once more, on pain of death, all men depart."  
  
The students involved go on their way with heavy heads.  
  
As the students exit, Lucius frowns. "Who sent this ancient quarrel new abroach? Speak, my boy, were you by when it began?"  
  
"Here were students of your adversary and yours close fighting ere I did approach. I drew to part them. In the instant came the fiery Ronald, with his wand prepared; which, as his breathed defiance to my ears, he swung about his head and cut the winds, who, nothing hurt withal, hissed him in scorn. While we were interchanging spells and blows, came more and more, and fought on part and part, 'till he came, who parted either part," Blaise explains.  
  
"O, where is my Draco?" Narcissia asks with furrowed brow, "Saw you him today? Right glad I am he was not at this fray."  
  
Blaise sighs and says, "Madam, an hour before the worshipped sun peered forth the golden window of the East, a troubled mind drave me to walk abroad; where, underneath the Forbidden Forest that westward rooteth from this school side, so early walking did I see your son. Towards him I mad, but he was ware of me and stole into the covert of the wood. I, measuring his affections by my own, which then most sought where most might not be found, being one to many by my weary self, pursued my humor, not pursuing his, and gladly shunned who gladly fled from me."  
  
"Many a morning hath he there been seen," Lucius matches Blaise's sigh with his own, shoulders stooping with worry for his son, " with tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew, adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs; but all so soon as the all-cheering sun should in the farthest East begin to draw the shady curtains from Aurora's bed, away from light steals home my heavy son and private in his dorm-room pens himself, shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out, and makes himself an artificial night. Black and portentous must this humor prove unless good counsel may the cause remove."  
  
Hoping to find a reason why his friend is so heavy Blaise asks, "My noble teacher, do you know the cause?"  
  
"I neither know it nor can learn of him," Lucius replies with a sad heart.  
  
"Have you importuned him by any means?"  
  
"Both myself and many other friends; but he, his own affections' counselor, is to himself - I will not say how true- but to himself so secret and so close, so far from sounding and discovery, as is the bud bit with an envious worm ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air or dedicate his beauty to the sun. Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow, we would as willingly give cure as know." The three of them were outside of the school now. Very near where Blaise had seen Draco earlier that day. After a few minutes of silent walking, Draco appears, his head hung in sorrow.  
  
"See, where he comes," Blaise tells them speeding up to get to his friend, "so please you step aside, I'll know his grievance, or be much denied.  
  
Nodding, Lucius steps to the side, letting the boy pass, "I would thou wert so happy y thy stay to hear true shrift. Come, madam, let's away."  
  
"Good morrow, Draco," Blaise says cheerily, running up from behind his friend."  
  
"Is the day so young?" Draco croaks, his voice rough from tears.  
  
"But new struck nine," replies Blaise.  
  
"Ay me!" Draco moans, "sad hours seem long. Was that my father that went hence so fast?"  
  
"Is was," Blaise nods, "what sadness lengthens Draco's hours?"  
  
"Not having that which having makes them short."  
  
"In love?" "Out-"  
  
"Of love?"  
  
"Out of here favor where I am in love."  
  
Blaise snorts as he looks up at the trees, "Alas that love, so gentle in his view, should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!"  
  
"Alas that love, whose view is muffled still, should without eyes see pathways to his will!" Draco finishes off his friend's sentence. They walk around the school for a bit until the lunch bell rings, luring them to the inviting food the school holds within its belly. "Well, shall we dine?" Draco asks as they step into the school. Suddenly, he sees the remnants of the fight before. Angry, he turns to Blaise and yells, "O me! What fray was here? Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all. Here's much to do with hate, but more with love. Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate, O anything, of nothing first create! O heavy lightness, serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, still-walking sleep, that is not what it is! This love feel I, that feel no love in this," he looked up, searching for a sign of emotion on Blaise's face, "dost thou not laugh?"  
  
Blaise shakes his head, "No, Draco, I rather weep."  
  
"Good heart," Draco raises an eyebrow, "at what?"  
  
"At they good heart's oppression," Blaise explains.  
  
""Why, such is love's transgression," Draco frowns, "griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast, which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest with more of thine. This love that thou hast shown doth add more grief to too much of mine own. Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, a choking gall, and a preserving sweet," wanting to go off to think on his own once again Draco says, "farewell, Blaise," and turns to leave.  
  
Realizing that his friend is trying to escape while he still hadn't fully explained his predicament, Blaise turned with him saying, "Soft! I will go along. An if you leave me so, you do me wrong.  
  
"Tut! I have lost myself; I am not here; this is not Draco, he's some other where.  
  
"Tell me in sadness, who is that you love?"  
  
"What, shall I groan and tell thee?"  
  
"Groan? Why, no; but sadly tell me who.  
  
"Bid a sick man in sadness make his will. Ah, word ill urged to one that is so ill! In sadness, Blaise, I do love a woman."  
  
"I aimed so near when I supposed you loved."  
  
"A right good markman. And she's fair I love."  
  
"A right fair mark, fair man, is soonest hit."  
  
"Well, in that hit you miss. She'll not be hit with Cupid's arrow. She hath Dian's wit, and, in strong proof of chastity well armed, from love's weak childish bow she lives unharmed. She will not stay the siege of loving terms, nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes, nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold. O, she is rich in beauty; only poor that, when she dies, with beauty dies her store."  
  
"Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?"  
  
"She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste; for beauty off from all posterity. She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair, to merit bliss by making me despair. She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow do I live dead that live to tell it now."  
  
"Be ruled by me; forget to think of her."  
  
Looking off into the distance forlornly Draco sighs, "O, teach me how I should forget to think!"  
  
"By giving liberty unto thine eyes," Blaise smirks, pointing to a passing girl with a rather large chest, "examine other beauties."  
  
"'Tis the way to call hers exquisite in question more," Draco says with a shrug, "These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows, being black puts us in mind they hide the fair, He that is strucken blind cannot forget the precious treasure of his eyesight lost. Show me a mistress that is passing fair, what doth her beauty serve but as a note where I may read who passed that passing fair? Farewell. Thou canst not teach me to forget." Draco speeds up a second time, but this time Blaise does not follow him or try to stop him.  
  
Shaking his head Blaise says, "I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt." 


	2. Act 1 Scene 2

Sorry about any spelling errors that may have occurred during the writing of this. It is truly sad that my first language is English yet I cannot spell its words to save my sad life. If it wasn't for spell check, you'd be reading goble-di-gook. Be very happy.  
  
~Bassoonfreak  
  
Arthur storms about his chambers, cursing, "But Lucius is bound as well as I, in penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think for men so old as we to keep the peace."  
  
"Of honorable reckoning are you both, and pity 'tis you lived at odds so long," Ginny comforts her father, "but now, my lord, what say you to my suit?" Her infatuation with Harry is swelling to an overwhelming peak. It seems that all she can talk or think about is Harry. Now she has gone to the extreme of trying to get her father to let her marry him. Unfortunately, Harry has come out to a select few people, Ginny not being among the number, that he is not interested in the opposite sex. It came as shock to Arthur, Ron, Molly, and many others, but they have gotten over it. Still, Molly has trouble being alone with Harry in the same room. Though she loves him, her religion will not let her truly except homosexuals.  
  
"But saying o'ver what I have said before: Gin, you are yet a stranger in the world," he tries to change his daughters infatuated mind, "you hath not seen the change of fifteen years; let two more summers wither in their pride ere we may think you fit to be a bride."  
  
"Younger than I are happy mothers made," she pouts as she sits down heavily on one of the over stuffed chairs in the room.  
  
Arthur shakes a finger at his youngest child and only daughter and says, "And too soon marred are those so early made. The earth hath swallowéd all my hopes but you; you are the hopeful lady of my earth. But woo him, gentle Ginny, get his heart; my will to his consent is but a part. An he agree, within his scope of choice lies my consent and fair according voice. This night I hold an old accustomed feast, whereto I have invited many a quest, such as I love; and you among the store," he kisses his daughter on the forehead, "one more, most welcome, makes my number more. At my poor house look to behold this night earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light. Such comfort as do lusty young men feel when well-apparelled April on the heel of limping Winter treads, even such delight among fresh fennel buds shall you this night inherit at my house. Hear all, all see, and like his most whose merit most shall be; which, on more view of many, him, being one, may stand in number, through in reck'ning none. Come, go with me," he turns to a house elf cleaning the windows of his room and gives him a paper, " Go, sirrah, trudge about through fair old Hogwarts; find those persons out whose names are written there, and to them say, my house and welcome on their pleasure stay."  
  
Arthur and Ginny walk out through the door to go out on a stroll together and talk some more leaving the confused house elf alone in the room. He looks over the list with a furrowed brow and sighs, "Find them out whose names are written here? It is written that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard and the tailor with his last, the fisher with his pencil and the painter with his nets; but I am sent to find those persons whose names are here writ, and can never find what names the writing person hath here writ. I must to the learned. In good time!"  
  
"Tut, man," Blaise sighs, still trying to turn Draco's affections away from Pansy, the current apple of his eye, "one fire burns out another's burning; one pain is less'ned by another's anguish; turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning; take thou some new infection to they eye, and the rank poison of the old will die."  
  
"Your plantain leaf is excellent for that," Draco snorts.  
  
"For what, I pray thee?" Blaise asks.  
  
Draco speeds up his pace and barks back, "For your broken shin."  
  
"Why, Draco," Blaise says, annoyed that Draco can be so dismissive of others' presence, "art thou mad?"  
  
"Not mad, but bound more than madman is; shut up in prison, kept without my food, whipped and tormented and," he notices a house elf tugging at his sleeve and says through gritted teeth, "god-den, house elf."  
  
"God gi' go-den," the house elf squeaks, "I pray, sir, can you read?"  
  
Draco shrugs, "Ay, If I know the letters and the language."  
  
"Ye say honestly. Rest you merry."  
  
"Stay, elf," Draco snaps, grabbing the paper from the elf, "I can read." He clears his throat and begin to read a list of names before saying with approval, "A fair assembly. Whither should they come?"  
  
"Up," the house elf replies simply.  
  
"Whither?" Draco asks again, "to supper?"  
  
The house elf nods, "To our house."  
  
"Whose house?"  
  
"My master's."  
  
"Indeed I should have asked you that before," Draco says.  
  
"Now I'll tell you without asking. My master is the rich in spirit Weasley; and if you be not of the house of Slytherins, I pray come and crush a cup of wine," he gives a deep bow, "Rest you merry."  
  
Smiling madly, Blaise says to Draco, "At this same ancient feast of Gryffindoor's sups the fair Pansy whom thou so loves; with all the admiréd beauties of Hogwarts. Go thither, and with unattainted eye compare her face with some that I shall show, and I will make thee think thy swan a crow."  
  
" When the devout religion of mine eye maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires; and these, who, often drowned, could never die," Draco shakes his head, "transparent heretics, be burnt for liars! One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun ne'er saw her match since first the world begun."  
  
"Tut!" exclaims Blaise exasperation, "you saw her fair, none else being by, herself poised with herself in either eye; but in that crystal scales let there be weighed your lady's love against some other maid that I will show you shining at this feast, and she shall scant show well that now seems best."  
  
Sighing, Draco gives in, "I'll go along, no such sight to be shown, but to rejoice in splendor of my own. 


	3. Acct 1 Scene 3

"Nurse!" Molly cries frantically as she runs into the hospital wing, "where is Harry? Call him forth to me."  
  
Earlier that week Harry had gotten in a rather bad Quiditch accident and Madam Pomfrey had been extremely keen on keeping him there. It was only a little while ago that she told Harry that she, Madam Pomfrey, had actually been his mother's midwife and had been taking care of him up until he left to go live with the Dursleys. She wanted to become his legal guardian. Dumbldore, however, had other plans. At that time it didn't make any sense, but now she can see why he did what he did. It was better that Harry grew up away from a society that revered him as almost a god. Even after he had been sent of to his uncle and aunt's, Madam Pomfrey had been secretly watching over him through the years up until he got to Hogwarts.  
  
"Now, by my gentlemen at twelve year old, I bade him come," she sighs, "What, boy! What strong young wolf! God forbid, where's this boy? What, Harry!"  
  
Harry hears the calling and steps out from behind the curtains where he is forlornly watching a Quiditch practice that he is not allowed to participate in and says, "How now? Who calls?  
  
"Molly does," Madam Pomfrey tells him.  
  
"Molly," he says, grabbing the woman's attention, "I am here. What is your will?"  
  
"This is the matter," she starts telling Harry something but turns to the Nurse and says, "Nurse, give leave awhile, we must talk in secret."  
  
Nodding, Madam Pomfrey starts walking towards her office to leave them to their business.  
  
Realizing who she is in the room alone with, Molly screeches for Poppy, "Nurse, come back again; I have rememb'red me, thou's hear our counsel. Thou knowest our Harry's of a handsome age."  
  
"Faith," Poppy sighs happily, "I can tell his age unto the hour."  
  
"He's not sixteen."  
  
"I'll lay sixteen of my teeth - and yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but six - he's not sixteen. How long is it now to Lammastide?"  
  
"A few months and odd days."  
  
"Even or odd, of all days in the year, come Lammas Eve at night shall he be sixteen. Susan and he (God rest all Christian souls!) were of an age. Well, Susan is with God; She was too good for me. But, as I said, on Lammas Eve at night shall he be sixteen; that shall he, marry; I remember it well. 'Tis since the earthquake now fifteen years; and she was weaned (I never shall forget it), of all the days of the year, upon that day; for I had then laid wormwood to my dug, sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall. James and Lilly were then at Bristol. Nay, I do bear a brain. But, as I said, when it did taste the wormwood on the nipple of my dug and felt it bitter, handsome fool, to see it tetchy and fall out with the dug! To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug! Shake, quath the dove house! 'Twas no need, I trow, to bid me trudge. And since that time it is fifteen years, for then she could stand high-lone; nay, by th' rood, he could have run and waddled all about; for even the day before, he broke his brow; and then my husband (God be with his soul! 'A was a merry man) took up the child. "Yea," quoth he, "dost thou fall upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit; Wilt thou not, boy?" and, by my holidam, the handsome wretch left crying and said "Ay." To see now how a jest shall come about! I warrant, an should live a thousand years, I never should forget it. "Wilt thou not, boy?" quoth he, and, pretty fool, it stinted and said 'Ay'." At this Poppy is clutching her sides in laughter. Here last words barely intelligible through her hysterics.  
  
""Enough of this," Molly laughs right along with her before regaining her composure, "I pray thee hold thy peace."  
  
"Yes, madam," Poppy giggles, "Yet I cannot choose but laugh to think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.' And yet, I warrant, it had upon it brow a bump as big as a young cock'rel's stone; a perilous knock; and it cried bitterly. 'Yea,' quoth my husband, 'fall'st upon thy face: Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age; wilt thou not, boy?' It stinted and said 'Ay.'"  
  
"And thou stint too," Harry says, "I pray thee, nurse, say I."  
  
With a nostalgic smile on her face, Poppy cups Harry's face with her hands and sighs, "Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace! Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed. An I might live to see thee married once, I have my wish."  
  
"Marry," Molly cuts in, "that 'marry' is the very theme I came to talk of. Tell me, truthfully Harry, how stands your disposition to be married?"  
  
Somewhat startled by the question, Harry shrugs and says, "It is an honor that I dream not of." He knows that his sexuality kind of gets in the way of the white picket fence dream. Marriage, or legal marriage at any rate, is impossible for him.  
  
"An honor?" grins Poppy, "Were not I thine only nurse, I would say thou hadst sucked wisdom from thy teat."  
  
"Well, think of marriage now. Younger than you, here in England, young men of esteem, are made already husbands. By my count, I was a mother much upon these years that you are now a man. Thus then in brief: my daughter Ginny seeks you for her love," Molly explains."  
  
"A girl, Harry!" Poppy exclaims, "Harry, such a girl as all the world - why she's a girl of wax."  
  
"Hogwarts' summer hath not such a flower," Molly tells him.  
  
"Nay," Poppy agrees, "she's a flower, inn faith - a very flower."  
  
"What say you?" asks Molly.  
  
Harry sits there, his mouth opening and closing while he looks for words to come to him.  
  
"Can you love my daughter?" Molly continues, "This night you shall behold her at our feast. Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face, and find delight writ there with beauty's pet; examine ever married lineament, and see how one another lends content; and what obscured in this fair volume lies find written in the margent of his eyes. This precious book of love, this unbound lover, to beautify him only lacks a cover. The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride for fair without the fair within to hide. That book in many's eyes doth share the glory, that in gold clasps locks in the golden story; so shall you share all that she doth possess, by having her making yourself no less."  
  
"No less?" Poppy snorts, "nay, bigger! Men grow by women."  
  
Again, Harry shrugs, not sure how to process the information thrown at him and says, "I'll look to like, if looking liking move; but no more deep will I endart mine eye than your consent gives strength to make it fly." 


End file.
